José - Interview RL #1 Murals 10/15
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We came up with it that we wanted to ask you, and if there's other things that you think we should be asking
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about the murals or what you do, please feel free just to redirect us.
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Just for starters, we wanted to know a little bit about your background, where you came
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from and how you got up here.
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Like I said, originally I'm from San Antonio, Texas, you know.
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And how I got here, me and this other guy used to drift around the country,
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you know, because it's the only way we could get around, you know.
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So we used to come to Missouri, the whole Midwest, you know.
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Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Illinois.
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And one time it just happened that I came and started working here,
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and I just stayed around 64. I just stayed here up to now, over 20 years.
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What kind of work were you doing? At that time, we were just doing seasonal
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work. We worked during the summer and then go back. When I came in 64 and got a job,
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I started working, then started getting a regular check. So I started, one year led
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to another, you know, in this state here, all this long. And that's when I enrolled
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in the art schools, you know, like going to the Art Institute and American Academy of
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Art, they call it. We used to take, or I used to take what they call the non-credit courses
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here, take figure drawing, and a little painting, not too much.
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Did it tie in at all to the kind of work you were doing? Or were you working in art at
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all at that time?
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Well, not really. I wasn't doing any work, art work, like professional art work. I was
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doing art work, but not making any money out of it, nothing. Just for my own benefit, I
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were just painting and drawing. And I had met this guy that just got out of the, live
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in West Kansas, in a penitentiary. And this guy could paint, you know. He was a good artist.
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And he said, you should take up painting instead of just drawing, you know, you should paint.
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I said, well, I can't do that. You know, he showed me the stuff he did while he was in
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prison, you know. He said, if I can do it, you can do it, you know. And I said, well,
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maybe I can." So I bought some paints and started messing around with them. Because
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everything was black and white. I used to do everything in black and white. I didn't
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have enough confidence to use color. I said, well, I can't do it. I'm still not that
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good at it, but I do it anyway. Yeah.
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that was really before the mural movement? Rufio Well, the murals, I think, started in
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the early 70s, I would say. Bill Walker and John Webber and a lot of people were doing
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murals. And the Mexicans over there on 18th Street, they started doing some stuff. And
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I happened that I met John, you know, at one of the, we were in a conference someplace
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in Gary, Indiana, you know, miners' conference or something like that. And he happened to
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be there, and he just happened to be starting on the U.E. Hall, you know, was going to,
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you know. So he asked me if I could help him, and I said, yeah. Even though I couldn't,
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I know much about painting, like I said, I said, I can do that, you know. Once I got
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up there. I said, what the hell are you doing? The guy would say, where'd you learn to paint?
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I said, well, I don't know how to paint that well, but if I see what you're doing, maybe
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I can. And it came out pretty good anyway. Worked out pretty good. Because I had a knack
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for it anyway, since I started painting about a year before that.
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that I can recall, yeah. At the same time, I was doing another one on 18th Street with
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some kids. I don't know. Called Si Se Pueda, have you seen it?
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And then, we started another one in Amherst. John was doing about two or three of them
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college. I went up there, and we used to, I helped them out on a couple of them. There
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was about three at the same time we were doing. We left the one at UE for the time being so
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we could paint outside, and also do the one at Amherst.
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Can we back up a little bit? It seems that political things or union things or some kind
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of, those kind of violence were what got you into this in the first place. Can you talk
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about that a little bit? That would be, in my case, yeah, I guess it
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was that, because like I was doing, like I was telling Susan one time, I was doing some
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cartooning for newspapers, for like workers' papers. And we had a paper at work. We used
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to mimeograph, called People Get Ready, named after the song, People Get Ready. And some
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of the guys used to do all the writing, and I used to do the cartoons for them. We just
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give it away, we couldn't sell it. We'd give it away. Sometimes we couldn't give it away
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either. Because it was a, speaking against a company, people would say, no, I don't want
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that kind of material because I might lose my job or whatever. We were trying to get
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the UE back, the United Electrical Workers, back. Because during the 50s and 60s, they
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had been thrown out of there because of the Senator from Wisconsin, what's his name?
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McCarthy or something like that. Yeah. And they had been thrown out and the IAM had went
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in, you know. So, at the time it was an open shop, you know, you could join, you know,
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join it. So, me and these other people got together, we're trying to make it a clothes
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shop, you know. And at the same time, trying to get the UE back. We figured that the union
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was still good at that time, you know. They're not now, you know, but they were there, you
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know. And I figured, you know, just help them out, and trying to organize the people in
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And we got enough people to vote, but not enough. So that was it for that. They got
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elected again, the ones that were there before the IAM, International Machinists or whatever.
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And then in 1982, they closed the plant. So that was the end of that.
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that kind of got you into…?
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Well, it wasn't actually the cause, because I was already doing work, but the work that
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I was doing had a lot to do with politics. Because like I was saying, in all art, it's
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politics anyway. I don't think there's anything that's painted that doesn't,
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it's not directed at some mentality, or some outlook, or some class of people. That's
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That's what I think.
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Like when Rivera painted the murals in Mexico, he was telling the story of the Mexican Revolution,
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see?
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Because the people, most of the people couldn't read or write, you know?
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So visually they could see, they had never seen a lot of the big shots, you know?
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But they saw Huerta, they saw Porfirio Diaz, they saw different characters in the revolution
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that they had never met before. And it was politics. And it still is, like whatever they
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paint is political. Whether it be like, you go to the Museum of Modern Art in Mexico,
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there's a lot of ropes and bricks put together. And it's political because the guy that did
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it to him must have some kind of politics. And he must have been directing that thought
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to somebody that he thought might receive it.
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A worker looked at it, and he didn't know what it is.
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He said, what the hell is that?
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Doesn't make sense.
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Because I've seen people talking about art in Mexico.
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But they see something that makes sense to them, like a
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woman running a machine, or somebody doing the work of an
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architect laying bricks.
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they can relate to that. That's what I'm saying, that all art is not detached from
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politics, like an old Chinese friend of mine used to say.
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What did he say? He would say that?
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Yeah. Mao Zedong used to say that there is no art for art's sake, that all art is political.
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It's a long quote, but I can't remember it all. All I know is that it said that it's
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political. Everything's political in art.
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What happened here? You were here right around the time then when things were taking off.
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What got things started here, with murals?
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Well, not only here, but in L.A. Like I said, this is my opinion. Somebody else might say
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But people were trying to identify themselves. Like the Mexicans in L.A. and living in the
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U.S. would say, well, we're not Mexicans, but we're not Anglo-Saxon either. They say
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we're Chicanos. It's the correct word. Because now they call us Hispanics. When I was in
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San Antonio, they used to say, You're Latin Americans. And before that, they used to say,
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You're Spanish Americans. Or you're this or you're that. And the most advanced of the
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working class, even though they know that much about history, they say, Well, these
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people, they call themselves different kinds of names. How would you like it if somebody
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said you were British and you're not? So they say, Well, they call themselves Chicanos.
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up to the, even now, of course, I can remember.
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And that makes an identity, saying,
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well, we're not from Mexico.
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We ain't got nothing against Mexico.
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And we're not Anglo-Saxons.
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We're Chicano, you know, with Mexican roots or whatever,
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you know.
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And the murals were for the purpose of saying,
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this is what we are.
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And this is what we believe in.
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They showed paintings of Ray Tijerina of New Mexico.
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They showed paintings of Cesar Chavez.
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And then the more political, we took pictures of Che Guevara,
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as you can see on the 18th Street.
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You know, saying that Latinos also have a history.
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And they also support their heroes,
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whether some other people like them or not.
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Because me being from San Antonio,
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The people that they say were our heroes were like the people who conquered Texas, like
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David Crockett and Sam Houston or whatever.
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And even as immigrants, we said, these people are not our heroes.
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Why do we have to look up to these people?
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They have this statue of David Crockett.
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You go into the Alamo even now, you see John Wayne.
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And then they got this white marble thing outside. They said, this is a monument to
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our forefathers. They said, well, not mine. On the contrary, it's a monument to white
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supremacy. Side look at it. Colonialism.
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that. And people would, including myself, would try to save what we believe in the murals.
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And they were pretty strong, what we said, because a lot of them were destroyed by the
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right-wing people. They put swastikas or throw paint on them, or they were well done.
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Like the one on Western and 18th Street, I don't know if you've seen it.
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It's like a film of a cameraman rolling.
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And it's got a lot of sections, you know, like those brackets.
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And it's got different, it's against intervention in Central America.
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So really, you know, all of them are political, like I said.
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I haven't seen one that's not, you know.
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Even if it's just a line on the wall, they're saying something.
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Or just like different colors.
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You know?
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So who are they speaking to?
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Who are you talking to?
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Well, a lot of times, in my case,
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it's directed at the younger people, you know?
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Because they being the most daring and the most whatever,
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you know?
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They have more spunk.
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And they can grasp certain things, you know, whether it be negative or positive.
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And the thing is to tell them that there is a different way of thinking besides what they
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see on TV, you know, or what they see the, especially like a lot of police, cop shows,
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you know, they have a lot of cop shows.
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And they see that as being part of the American way, you know.
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they see John Wayne, they see Karate Moose or whatever. And then when they see these
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murals depicting culture that really belongs to them, they say, well, maybe I can relate
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to that too. Because a lot of these kids, some of them don't even speak Spanish. And
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it's on account that they think that to speak English is better than to speak Spanish, that
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they're accepted more.
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And with the murals like this one that we're doing,
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it shows two young people taking over
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certain aspects of history.
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And it says that it's up to them and the people now,
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but mostly up to them to get things straight,
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whatever needs to be straight,
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to change politics or to get rid of a system
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that's bad. And it shows that they can get involved, and it shows that the mural itself
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shows that they can do artwork, too, because there's about ten kids working on it. And
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a lot of people figure that maybe they can do it, but with good direction, they can do
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it. I say anybody can paint. If I can paint, anybody can paint.
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What do you hope to achieve by having the kids work with you?
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Well, it's not like if we do something like that they'll forever be enlightened about
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certain things. But I can always walk into this community and see a lot of kids and they
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say, well I worked in that mural, I did this and I did that, you know. As opposed to, you
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can hear in this neighborhood, some guy got shot right in the corner, you know, because
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he was wearing his cap lopsided or wearing the wrong color jacket, you know. See, you
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know what I mean? It's the other side of the coin, that not everything is negative.
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like Tristan was saying, you walk down this neighborhood, everybody looks friendly. It's
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not that people are hostile, but something is causing those gangs to act that way. And
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part of the thing that's doing it is the drugs, because you make a lot of money selling drugs.
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It's better than working at McDonald's. If a guy's getting $3 an hour there, whatever,
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and he can sell drugs and make 50 bucks a day or more, it's cool. He's liable to do
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do that. If his parents or whatever, counselors, haven't put something different in his head.
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And I figure that the art, as far as the community murals, are doing that. Giving them a more
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positive way of exercising their energies.
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the main themes that you guys were painting? What were the main issues?
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Rufio- Sixties and seventies, like I said, was like mostly the identity thing. That's
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when we were doing this in the neighborhoods, okay? 18, 26, little village, different places.
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And a lot of them didn't have no funding. We didn't have any funding. We get money from
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neighborhood stores or the businesses, and we do it. With little or no, you know, what
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which is called salary, money. We did it because we wanted to do it. They said, we'll figure
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we might make some money later on. And then what happened was that, like I was saying
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to him the other day, a lot of the college students, the art students in school are always
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looking for something different than what they're being taught. That's been going on
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for. So the art teachers at the Art Institute or whatever, they didn't teach mural art
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there or any school here in town that I know. Maybe they do now because of the muralists.
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They're here now, but not before. So anyway, these students would come out to the neighborhood
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I said, they liked it, you know. And they would, you know, like, start working on it,
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take some projects on their own. And they did a very good job, too, you know. But then
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these agencies with the money came up, you know. And they were better qualified to write,
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you know, proposals and stuff like that. And they were giving a lot of money. So, I'm not
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trying to be negative about it, but there's only one place they could paint when they
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got the money. It had to be an underprivileged neighborhood. So they'd go there and do the
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murals. Of course, when we were there, they said, well, it's not like this is our territory
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or not, but we've been doing this. We want some of the funds too. We've been doing this,
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we'll start getting paid anyway. So it worked out pretty good. There was a few groups formed.
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I want to be in the Chicago Mural Group that Weber and I think Bill Walker started.
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But I'm not sure, but I know it's him and Walker.
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And I was with him for a long time, you know, doing the, doing artwork.
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But now we're, we got our own group, you know.
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It's Chicago Urban Arts at Casa Atlanta.
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And we're doing stuff there.
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teaching art, drawing, painting, and sculpturing, whatever comes up.
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Have the issues changed now, when you go out and paint a mural now, are you dealing with
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different issues?
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Well, the politics. See, to paint a mural, you can draw from a lot of things that are
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happening now, you know. One of the biggest things happening is the drugs, you know, so.
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And racism is still here, like that mural talks about. A lot of people say, well, like
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I was telling him too, you know. They say that the swastika and all that sort of place
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now belongs in the 30s. And I says, why come, these people still, you go up north and you
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see all this, you know, racist elements writing swastikas and drawing swastikas and talking
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about white power yet. So they're still around. So we still use the symbols that they were
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there then and they're still here now. And as far as drugs, they're still coming in.
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Just recently, the banks, some of the banks were involved in laundering drug money. And
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is talking about giving the Contras more money also. And they're dealing in drugs. According
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to one guy, he says, the reason they have to deal in drugs is to fight communism, they
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say. Stabilize what do you call it? Central America. And numb this year, I guess. So a
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A lot of the, what do you call it, the subjects deal with contemporary politics. We sometimes
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don't look too much different than the ones in the past because we've still got the same
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problems, only worse now. There's more people involved in it, younger people involved in
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You see people ten years old selling drugs now, or involved in different things like
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that. So the message in the mural would be that it's up to them actually to get rid
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of their problem that bothers them.
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I always imagine you guys looking at walls and going, what a great wall.
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Yeah.
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I always do that.
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All of them do that.
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When you look at a wall, how do you decide what you got?
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Do you just have this vision?
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How do you figure out what goes on that wall?
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It depends what's going on in that community.
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But you would paint, for instance, in one community and might not fit in the other,
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see? For instance, in the 60s when they were doing the identity art, it would fit more
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in an ethnic, Mexican ethnic or Arab ethnic or whatever ethnic it was in that area, see?
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You decide, you meet with people, and then you discuss a theme, you know, what the theme's
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gonna be about.
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It could be everything from child care to the homeless, you know, depending on what
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it is.
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Like in 1979, maybe I got the year wrong, I don't know, when it was the Year of the
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Child, a lot of people were doing murals, dealing with children.
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And I think John did some on that line.
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I did too.
24:33.560 --> 24:40.840
And then, for instance, you go to a museum like the Field Museum.
24:40.840 --> 24:47.560
And we did one dealing with, it was Mother's Day.
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So it was dealing with the mother.
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Since it was a museum, we had people participate in that.
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But the theme was appropriate in that area to be done about the mother.
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And the other one was about, one before that we did was on past, present, and future.
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Being in a museum, they got a lot of stuff that belonged back a thousand years.
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And they got a lot of stuff that's closer to now.
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So we got the idea to do one past, present, and future.
25:31.060 --> 25:36.800
Each area you go to calls for a different, in my book, calls for a different theme.
25:36.800 --> 25:38.640
High school might call for one.
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You go to kindergarten, call for another thing.
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You go to a college, you might call for something else.
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or you go to a union hall, and it deals with workers' history or whatever. Each place calls
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for a different story to be told, I guess. You said that you talk to people, how does
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the community actually have input? Do they have input with you, in a sense, about what's
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going to go on that wall? In some cases, yeah. Like in this case, I
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usually kind of make my own ideas. And then when the children help, they can come up with
26:25.440 --> 26:32.800
ideas too. But usually I'm the one that's got the main ideas. In other cases, they might
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specify what we want. Some to deal with this in particular, you know. I might go along
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with it sometimes. Yeah. Like we did one at El Rincón. You know Rincón? You familiar
26:48.920 --> 26:59.840
with? That area? Western and Milwaukee. I think Susan's taken us over there. But it
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was a methadone clinic. I don't know if it still is. So when I went there, it's very
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tense there. There was a lot of, they don't like to be called junkies, they call themselves
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patients. And that's what they call them, patients. They were taking methadone to counter
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or heroin, whatever. So of course, why are you going to paint there? I mean, those people
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are tense. They're hooked on drugs. The administration is tense, because they don't like them. They
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just got those clinics to make money. The patients don't like them either, so the whole
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thing is tense. You go in there, what are you supposed to paint? You can't paint a garden
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and disregard what's going on there, see?
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So there was a couple of people that drew, that liked to draw.
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They did pretty good because they had a lot of good tattoos on them, well made, that they
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had got in prison.
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And some of them had did it themselves.
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They showed me, look, I can draw pretty good.
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If I can do it with a needle, I can do it with a pencil.
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So I said, well, let's whoever wants to get in the discussion, we can get something going.
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And these people would sit down and talk, you know, and we would get ideas from there.
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He said, we actually don't want to be junkies now.
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We don't want to be hooked on drugs, you know, but that's the way it is.
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So we can't afford to buy heroin or cocaine, Sutter Ridge, completely.
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we come to this clinic and drink methadone. So we got the idea to do a mural on anti-drugs.
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But not like now they say, just say no. How can you just say no to drugs? So it was stronger
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than that, we would show figures of people, the dealers would be like bankers, like, like,
29:18.640 --> 29:22.080
it's not like we were predicting the future or nothing, but we already knew that it's
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big money that brings drugs into this country. So the figures dealt with the theme of drug
29:30.680 --> 29:38.400
addiction and drug traffic. And, and the people there at the clinic, except for a few of them,
29:38.400 --> 29:43.680
like it. But most of them liked it and they said, go ahead and do it, you know. And it
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was done in panels and it wasn't like direct on the wall. It was in 8 by 4 panels. So,
29:52.560 --> 30:00.080
stayed there for about a month and finished it. And when the people from downtown, the
30:00.080 --> 30:05.760
people who ran the thing came, they saw they didn't like it, you know. They said, the thing
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Everything is completely tasteless, you know.
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It's a weird spectrum.
30:12.720 --> 30:20.080
Something more joyous, you know, in a depressed area like this, you want something to make
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people spirits, you know, get, you know, feel happy about it.
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But this is depression, they said.
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So the guy said, why is it depression?
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We like it, you know.
30:34.120 --> 30:41.040
He chose who's dealing in drugs, who's bringing the drugs into this country.
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He chose that some of the doctors are corrupt.
30:44.940 --> 30:49.320
He chose that some of the bankers are corrupt.
30:49.320 --> 30:55.600
They say, well, he says, I don't care what, the guy said, one of the directors.
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It's got to go.
30:58.160 --> 31:07.320
So the director there said, I'll tell you what, let's have a dedication, and then we'll
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decide. So we had the dedication. A lot of people went. They had a lot of food. And then
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they said, but tomorrow this thing has got to go. And that's what the guy said, because
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they don't like the politics.
31:22.320 --> 31:29.240
So finally, there was a lot of trouble. People got mad. The patients got mad. The administration
31:29.240 --> 31:33.720
got mad. They had already been mad anyway at each other for different things. So it
31:33.720 --> 31:45.080
brought it to a worse point. So I was at work that day, and then my wife called me and told
31:45.080 --> 31:48.560
me that she was going to, her and another woman had to go get their meal, because they
31:48.560 --> 32:01.280
get stacked outside in the alley. So we took it home. And that was the end of that one.
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And I don't know if they still got a clinic there or not. But like I said, it's murals
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deal with certain, whatever politics in that little area is going on, whatever's happening.
32:12.680 --> 32:19.680
that's what's happening. How do you feel about the fact that, I mean, doing this artwork
32:19.680 --> 32:26.680
and that it's in the elements and people can get paint on it, I mean, that kind of
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transitory? Well, most of the murals, I would say, 90% of them were left alone. If you see
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some of them destroyed once in a while. People who do graffiti. Maybe it's a street gang
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that doesn't like that particular gang in that area. And they figure that they worked
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on it, somebody worked on it. The worst thing you can do to a neighborhood is mess up a
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a wall like that, you know. Like when we started this one here, the one we have here, somebody
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did some graffiti on it. So some gang slogan or something. So then somebody talked to that
33:15.920 --> 33:21.920
man and told him that it was a community project, you know. Well, it was an 18-year-old, something
33:21.920 --> 33:30.240
And that if he wants to participate, he can participate in a better way, you know.
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And we painted over the slogan and he just left it alone and he didn't bother.
33:36.160 --> 33:39.880
The one on this side, the one called Shoot for the Sky, somebody threw an acorn at one
33:39.880 --> 33:42.400
time, you know.
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We just getting finished with it.
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And they threw one up there too, you know.
33:47.480 --> 33:53.920
Anyway, the reason this guy did it two years ago, because we won't let him work on the
33:53.920 --> 33:54.920
murals.
33:54.920 --> 34:00.920
We told him we had enough people helping, so he came up and laid some eggs on them.
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If you paint these in a museum, it's protected for maybe thousands of years.
34:13.000 --> 34:15.360
Is this art going to last?
34:15.360 --> 34:17.400
I think it's going to last.
34:17.400 --> 34:24.040
as the years go by, people begin to respect them more, because you can go to some of the
34:24.040 --> 34:28.300
murals I paint, like mine on Spalding and North, there's a lot of graffiti around it,
34:28.300 --> 34:33.640
but not on it. Maybe nowadays, but I haven't seen it in a couple of months. But they used
34:33.640 --> 34:38.040
to leave it alone. Especially if you get the community involved in it.
34:38.040 --> 34:45.040
Do you have a feeling about why it is that it's, I don't know, you might use the word
34:45.040 --> 34:51.200
Hispanic or Chicano or whatever, but why it is these neighborhoods where you see all this
34:51.200 --> 34:55.800
art on the walls, and not Chinese and not Polish?
34:55.800 --> 34:59.400
Well, there are some in the Polish neighborhoods.
34:59.400 --> 35:05.880
Like I think Milwaukee and Pulaski is one, dealing with the Polish culture.
35:05.880 --> 35:10.320
I don't know if you've seen it close to McDonald's, yeah?
35:10.320 --> 35:17.480
And then there's one on 47, close to Marquette Park.
35:17.480 --> 35:21.200
Not as many, but there are some, you know?
35:21.200 --> 35:26.440
See like now, what's happening is a lot of the people that have money, they're buying
35:26.440 --> 35:33.440
stuff to be put inside, you know, murals to be done inside their houses, you know?
35:33.440 --> 35:40.800
They used to say at one time it belongs in the slums, now they say it belongs to people
35:40.800 --> 35:42.480
who can afford it.
35:42.480 --> 35:43.480
They hire people to do that.
35:43.480 --> 35:44.480
A lot of people do that kind of work.
35:44.480 --> 35:45.480
How do you feel about that?
35:45.480 --> 35:52.000
Well, me and this other guy were discussing the other day.
35:52.000 --> 35:56.000
They said the same people who came out of the college at that time and worked in the
35:56.000 --> 35:57.000
neighborhoods.
35:57.000 --> 36:04.400
Then later on, got the idea, they had more business savvy, I guess.
36:04.400 --> 36:09.040
They opened up their own shops, and the ones dealing with people downtown now.
36:09.040 --> 36:12.160
Like this store that opened up, Bloomingdale's, and whatever you call it.
36:12.160 --> 36:16.280
There's people doing work in there, and getting paid a lot of money.
36:16.280 --> 36:19.280
I ain't got none of the guests, so they can do it.
36:19.280 --> 36:22.280
It's all right with me.
36:22.280 --> 36:34.540
to be doing. I wouldn't mind. But I'd still be doing community art, because I feel more
36:34.540 --> 36:40.740
comfortable here. It's like, this guy is doing this and this and that, and my son's participating,
36:40.740 --> 36:48.180
my daughter's working with him. I don't know how to just say it. They seem like they appreciate
36:48.180 --> 36:52.300
it more. I don't know if that's the case or not. It might be.
36:52.300 --> 36:58.380
I'm just getting back to the whole, it seems to me as an outsider, that there's something
36:58.380 --> 37:02.980
about this kind of art that's really, I mean, maybe there's some in Polish neighborhoods
37:02.980 --> 37:07.180
every now and then you see one on Michigan Avenue or something, but it seems like it's
37:07.180 --> 37:09.820
more a part of your culture.
37:09.820 --> 37:14.580
Well, see, to begin with, like in Mexico, when you go into the pyramids, and there's
37:14.580 --> 37:20.540
a lot of murals there. So I might be mistaken, but I'm not too familiar with that part of
37:20.540 --> 37:29.340
history, but the Aztecs and local people that were living there were doing mural art in
37:29.340 --> 37:37.860
their temples. And I would take a guess at it and say that it has been like Latins who
37:37.860 --> 37:45.700
introduce mural art. Because Michelangelo was doing mural art, but it was different.
37:45.700 --> 37:51.980
See? He just took the space and put a figure there. He took the space and put whatever
37:51.980 --> 37:58.380
space he had, he put a figure there. Well done, of course. But then when Rivera and
37:58.380 --> 38:04.100
them came along, they used the space in a different manner. They're the ones that introduced,
38:04.100 --> 38:12.860
actually introduced the murals to the world, I would say, and using the technique that
38:12.860 --> 38:20.540
they used, like fresco, and cicadas using the geometric lines, like I try to use sometimes,
38:20.540 --> 38:28.620
you know. And this other man named Hector uses. He's the one that, this guy Hector,
38:28.620 --> 38:31.780
He's the one that been here a couple of years
38:31.780 --> 38:35.700
and sort of refreshing our minds on to use that.
38:36.940 --> 38:41.900
So I would say it does have Mexican roots,
38:41.900 --> 38:45.860
I would say, the mural, the modern mural movement.
38:47.700 --> 38:49.300
Going back to the people that were doing it,
38:49.300 --> 38:54.140
like Siqueiros Orozco and Rivera,
38:55.140 --> 38:56.980
and the rest of them that do murals,
38:58.620 --> 39:07.540
does come from Mexican roots, I would say no. Of course, when we do it, I'm not thinking
39:07.540 --> 39:14.180
about that. I'm trying to just do it so it comes out looking all right. I don't care
39:14.180 --> 39:15.180
what roots it has.
39:15.180 --> 39:22.180
I don't want to wear you out, can I ask you a few more questions?
39:22.180 --> 39:23.180
Sure.
39:23.180 --> 39:30.860
One thing I was curious about, someone like me walks up to these murals, are there ways
39:30.860 --> 39:33.860
that I could look at them to try to understand them?
39:33.860 --> 39:36.740
Are there certain symbols that are going to be recurring?
39:36.740 --> 39:39.740
You do see certain things in a lot of different murals.
39:39.740 --> 39:43.300
Are there things that you would tell me to look for,
39:43.300 --> 39:48.260
that you could explain to me that I might understand better?
39:48.260 --> 39:50.660
Well, I'm very basic about that, because you
39:50.660 --> 39:51.540
will look at colors.
39:51.540 --> 39:53.460
You see bright colors, you know it looks good.
39:53.460 --> 39:56.460
If it looks dark, it's indicating
39:56.460 --> 39:59.460
something maybe negative.
39:59.460 --> 40:02.820
Like in this case, I learned to use symbols.
40:02.820 --> 40:05.700
Instead of putting a lot of figures, maybe use two or three
40:05.700 --> 40:06.260
and that's it.
40:06.260 --> 40:08.020
And then colors.
40:08.020 --> 40:17.820
And then maybe like, like it has a dark sky, cloudy sky, indicating whatever negative things
40:17.820 --> 40:23.220
are going on now in politics or whatever.
40:23.220 --> 40:30.540
And drugs and crime and instead of putting a lot of figures there, indicating certain
40:30.540 --> 40:35.100
things, the storm behind it deals with all that, see?
40:35.100 --> 40:42.860
And then of course, a Thunderbird dove, you know, indicates that something's stopping
40:42.860 --> 40:43.860
it.
40:43.860 --> 40:48.780
You know, it's not in full gear, because there's people stopping certain things, you
40:48.780 --> 40:51.460
know.
40:51.460 --> 40:59.020
And the dove is not actually, it's not that white, you know, it doesn't look real white.
40:59.020 --> 41:03.960
So I mean, it's like in there doing something like working.
41:03.960 --> 41:08.800
And then under the wings of the WC, different colors, brighter colors, see?
41:08.800 --> 41:11.080
So it's not too difficult to understand.
41:11.080 --> 41:20.840
And then the two sides of the doorway show a boy and a girl in different atmospheres.
41:20.840 --> 41:22.920
So it's not too hard to read.
41:22.920 --> 41:28.800
Though some people might do things like that, you know, put a lot of different things so
41:28.800 --> 41:32.000
so that people look at it and keep coming back
41:32.000 --> 41:34.160
and trying to figure out what it says.
41:34.160 --> 41:35.960
And that's okay too, you know.
41:35.960 --> 41:38.240
But the way I do it, I figured I want to do it
41:38.240 --> 41:40.840
so that people can grasp it, you know.
41:40.840 --> 41:45.320
So that people don't go to museums often
41:45.320 --> 41:48.720
and they can see certain art form
41:48.720 --> 41:52.180
that they can speak about, you know.
41:53.440 --> 41:56.360
Then I have to be saying, oh, this line curves to the left
41:56.360 --> 41:57.760
and it means this, you know.
41:58.800 --> 42:03.280
and such grace and all that, that they talk about in the museums. I don't even know what
42:03.280 --> 42:09.800
they're talking about. All I see is the color and whatever the thing says there.
42:09.800 --> 42:33.640
the people used to like it. Because you can see anybody on the street, even when I'm
42:33.640 --> 42:37.200
away from the service, say, hey, here's a guy that painted that mural up there. He's
42:37.200 --> 42:45.440
mural man or the artist or whatever. See, a lot of the people don't like to be called
42:45.440 --> 42:53.320
artists, including me, because it's better that we're known as culture workers or something
42:53.320 --> 43:01.800
like that, other than artists. Because you think of artists as, I think as an artist
43:01.800 --> 43:05.920
when I think of Michelangelo or somebody like that. But I ain't no Michelangelo, just like
43:05.920 --> 43:14.040
like this guy told this other guy he wasn't no Kennedy. So more of a culture worker.
43:14.040 --> 43:16.940
EC? You don't think of yourself as an artist?
43:16.940 --> 43:21.640
JLR Not really. I never thought of myself as an
43:21.640 --> 43:29.920
artist. No. I just do that. I consider it more like work. The work I enjoy doing, see,
43:29.920 --> 43:36.920
that I enjoy doing. What sort of things, I mean, from what you,
43:36.920 --> 43:45.920
where you see your community going and the needs of the people around here, what do you
43:45.920 --> 43:50.920
see are the topics that you're going to be doing in the future? Do you have sort of a
43:50.920 --> 43:51.920
vision of where the murals are going to go? Yeah. Well, see, like we always have different
43:51.920 --> 43:57.560
ideas, you know, like this other wall that I'm going to do next year, we want to do
43:57.560 --> 44:03.280
some sculpture on it. Now we get enough money. See because like I said most of my murals
44:03.280 --> 44:10.400
were sponsored by the Chicago Office of Fine Arts. So we get a certain amount of money.
44:10.400 --> 44:18.640
And we're gonna see if we can get maybe more money from other sources so we can do a three
44:18.640 --> 44:24.920
dimensional cement relief you know and use different stuff that we see laying around
44:24.920 --> 44:34.720
like glass, sand, and different things that can be put into the mural. That's what I see.
44:34.720 --> 44:40.840
Do you see them moving towards this 3D? In my case, yeah. That's what I want to do.
44:40.840 --> 44:46.240
Yeah. As opposed to just painting, which is all right. Nothing wrong with that. But if
44:46.240 --> 44:52.880
we can get more money, we can, you know, do other stuff. And I hear they're cutting a
44:52.880 --> 45:00.280
a lot of that they might cut the funds for the arts, you know. So then, like a friend
45:00.280 --> 45:07.800
of mine was saying, we get used to being given money by these organizations and now we're
45:07.800 --> 45:14.680
going to have to go on our own, see if we got how to get a portfolio organized, get
45:14.680 --> 45:23.200
more publicity and do what the guys downtown are doing, open up, you know, sell your own
45:23.200 --> 45:29.160
self and get the money your own way, you know. It was not so much depend on the agencies,
45:29.160 --> 45:36.040
you know. Which in my case, if it wasn't for the agency, Chicago's Fine Arts, I wouldn't
45:36.040 --> 45:41.640
have enough money to do a mural, you know. Because it cost about $5,000 to do. I mean,
45:41.640 --> 45:49.200
the total of a mural. Does not count scaffolding and all that. Because people from the boys
45:49.200 --> 45:56.720
club pay for the scaffolding. Are there certain themes and things that you
45:56.720 --> 46:03.240
think are going to change, issues, or to do some new things in the community?
46:03.240 --> 46:10.880
Yeah, they're changing. Because for instance, if you go to an Arab community, there's things
46:10.880 --> 46:16.240
happening in their part of the world. And then the Latino community, this part happening
46:16.240 --> 46:24.120
in Central America, that might change, you know, they might get for the better. Or you
46:24.120 --> 46:32.760
see a lot of Irish people in their neighborhoods who are up on the politics of what's happening
46:32.760 --> 46:37.040
in their part of the world. So if you do a mural there, of course you discuss with them
46:37.040 --> 46:39.740
and say, well, do this, do that.
46:39.740 --> 46:41.900
Ireland is not like it was before,
46:41.900 --> 46:44.280
but this is what it is now.
46:44.280 --> 46:46.740
Or whatever country the man comes from or the woman.
46:49.100 --> 46:49.940
This tape's just a little.
46:49.940 --> 46:53.400
Okay, well, I probably pretty well talked your ear off.
46:53.400 --> 46:55.940
I didn't know, Susan, did you wanna ask a question or two?
46:55.940 --> 46:56.780
If you wouldn't.